


Rivers of the Folly

by Zoya1416



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Aging, Children, Comment Fic, F/M, Family, Folly Wizards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 21:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13039314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: Today I watched my father walk into the river.





	Rivers of the Folly

Today I watched my father walk into the river. I don't know why he hadn't before, and my mother won't tell me. I think he finally came in because the Folly filled up with wizards and he could leave. The Nightingale had only the one apprentice for a few years, and then Abigail-- and then there were quickly four more. Then these four found half-wizards, hedge-wizards, who'd been taught a few spells by their grandfathers.

My Grandmother said that the Nightingale swore, fainted, and took to his bed for a week when they were discovered (maybe she's exaggerating.) But then he picked himself up, took them in, and started teaching them too. They learned the Latin Isaacs need faster than my father did-- he said he could have learned faster in a group if he'd had one. So they didn't need ten full years.

The woman who can fly found more, witch-women hiding in Africa, and brought them in. Twenty years after my father started there were thirty wizards. There were so many they didn't all need to be in the police. I know my father started research going again, because he had a great feud with the Nightingale about it.

They compromised. All of the wizards learned battle spells, but only a few practiced them constantly, the ones who were in the police. Others were allowed to study more theory, and do experiments. They had to write everything down, because my father made them. He said that was not done before, and knowledge was lost. The researchers still had to show fighting competence, always. 

My father yielded his place to another Master when he turned ninety. He offered it to DCI Kamara, but she refused, and it went to Jonathon Seawoll. His great-uncle Alexander would have had a stroke, my father said, if he hadn't already had one.

The Folly filled up wth children of the officers my father first worked with-- the Kumars, DI Guleed's girls. My aunt Fleet let two of her foster children go, and that finally broke the separation between the Rivers and the Folly. They still fought politically-my aunt Tyburn would never agree to share power-- but after the Folly wizards changed their wards so the Rivers could enter, even she was happier. Of course each visitor had to be let in with permission, but it's that way at my Grandmother's too. 

Of all the things no one expected, the Nightingale was killed by an accident. A stupid fucking accident, he had a stupid fucking accident in his Ferrari, he always drove too fast, my father said, cursing and crying for weeks. He hit a patch of ice on a February morning, and before he could correct, a lorry slammed into him. My father was left the Master of the Folly, and that brought the peace into it. The Nightingale came from that old war, and never really became a policeman, my mother said. He lived for one hundred and forty years, the war had been over for almost a hundred, and still he was a soldier.

Finally, my father grew old. He walked into the river with my mother today, sank under, stayed for an hour, then jumped straight up like a fountain, laughing, new.  


My mother floated to the surface of her river, smiling softly. So I asked them then, told them, that I want to leave the River. I've wanted to go for a long time. My mother asked me over and over why I want to leave, to stop being a goddess. I won't. But I can travel, if I'm under Folly oaths, and I want to go everywhere. Everywhere in the world. I can be an ambassador, l said, a type that's never existed before, wizard and River, and finally she agreed.  


The Folly still takes children of eleven, though now with fifty wizards they don't need to take many, and I don't want to wait. I, Aurelia Nightingale Grant-Thames--will be one. My father walked into the river today, and I will walk out tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> For what it's worth, my style has changed a bit with my last two fics. That's because I've been writing on my phone, with quick ideas and a few hours execution. Oh, so that's how Nightingale got that nickname--Freddie Arbuthnot messing around. Or, just the summary line of this one 'today l watched my father walk into the river.' I had no idea where it was going. 
> 
> With Christmas and travel, this is probably all I can write. Back to real stories after New Year's.


End file.
